Sunshine Haven Wildlife Rehabilitation

08/11/2026

Congratulation to the rehab team who gave their all to give this bird a chance at life.

R.I.P JACKIE.

Unfortunately today we learned that Jackie the bald eagle from Big Bear has passed away.

Now that we know this, I have a question that I’d really like to hear your thoughts on.

Jackie was injured after being attacked by another bald eagle. The Oji Wildlife Rehabilitation Center intervened, removed her from her natural environment and took her into rehabilitation with the goal of helping her recover.

Now that we know she has died, it raises a much bigger question about our relationship with wildlife:

When is intervention helping an animal, and when does our intervention begin to interfere with the natural course of its life?

By removing Jackie from the wild, her natural life was disrupted. She was separated from her environment, her territory and the other eagles she was living alongside. Her family will never know what happened to her, and the natural course of events was changed—regardless of whether the decision to intervene was made with the best of intentions.

But there is another side to that question.

Humans frequently intervene when wildlife enters "our" environment. We remove bears from neighborhoods, relocate mountain lions, trap coyotes and sometimes euthanize animals that come into conflict with people. In many cases, those animals aren't doing anything other than what animals do—trying to survive in an environment that we increasingly choose to share with them.

So where do we draw the line?

Is it our responsibility to intervene when a wild animal is injured and give it a chance to survive?

Or should we sometimes allow nature to take its course, even when that means watching an animal suffer or die?

And is there a difference between rescuing an animal from an injury caused by another animal and intervening when wildlife comes into conflict with humans?

Are we protecting wildlife when we intervene, or are we sometimes altering a natural process that we don't fully understand?

I want to be very clear: this isn't intended to criticize or defend the rehabilitation center. I'm genuinely interested in the larger conversation about wildlife intervention and where that line should be drawn.

Wildlife, nature and the balance of ecosystems are things I'm extremely passionate about, and I don't think there is always a simple right or wrong answer.

So I'm asking you—not to tell me what you think I should believe, but what YOU believe.

Was intervening to help Jackie the right thing to do?

Or should nature have been allowed to take its course?

And perhaps most importantly: where do you believe the line should be drawn when it comes to humans intervening in the lives of wild animals?

Let's have a respectful conversation. I genuinely want to hear both sides.

📷 Credit Johnny Lopez and Bald and golden eagles, Credit: Bald eagle: Paul Friel / Wikimedia Commons. Golden eagle/USFWS, Public Domain, https://www.fws.gov/media/bald-and-golden-eagles

07/07/2026

In 2018, officials in the Brdy region of the Czech Republic, a protected landscape south of Prague, set out to fix a problem. Decades earlier, the military had dug drainage channels that dried out the local wetlands. To undo the damage, the government planned to build a series of small dams that would restore the wetland and protect a nearby river from acidic pollution, safeguarding rare species like the stone crayfish.

They secured the funding, roughly 30 million Czech crowns, about $1.2 million. And then the project ground to a halt.

For the next seven years, it went nowhere. The plan got tangled in permits, environmental approvals, and disputes over who actually owned the land. Agencies negotiated with the military and the river authority, paperwork shuffled back and forth, and the wetland stayed dry while everyone waited.

Then, one day, officials went out to the site and found the job already done.
A family of about eight beavers had moved into the exact spot where the dams were meant to go and built them, out of wood, mud, and stones, entirely on their own. And they had not just matched the plan. Experts who inspected the work said the beavers had chosen their locations perfectly, creating a thriving wetland with pools and canals that was twice the size of what the government had designed on paper.

The rodents had completed a $1.2 million project for free, and arguably done it better.

07/02/2026

SCAM FRAUD ALERT!
**************************************
We received this email today;

"Hello,

I am reaching out on behalf of a client through our consulting practice, who is interested in making a meaningful charitable contribution, in support of animal welfare initiatives.

We are currently helping the client identify the most impactful way to allocate this support within your organization, whether through shelter operations or medical care.

Could you please advise:

- What donation methods are available?

- Is there a minimum or recommended amount for major donations?

- What is the procedure for donating?

- What are your current priority needs or active initiatives?

- Who is the appropriate contact person for donor coordination?

We would appreciate the opportunity to align this contribution with your highest-impact needs and proceed once we have a better understanding of the available options.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Aaron Ari | General Manager

Factor Consulting Inc
315A Craven Road, Toronto,
ON M4L 2Z5, Canada
(T) +1343-321-3400
(E) [email protected]
(w) http://www.factorconsulting.ca/ "
😡🤬

06/17/2026

https://www.facebook.com/ktla5/posts/pfbid0TCnnTYtpbXdZ7M41NoKjUvSbEsWPRQCB62265CypWQLUQvLWQiguFYpRPsAFgEE8l

Residents are worried after a San Bernardino County man was attacked by a bear at his home. The incident came amid a reported uptick in bear sightings in the neighborhood.
Details: https://ktla.com/news/california/19-year-old-attacked-by-bear-san-bernardino-county/

06/16/2026

https://www.facebook.com/wes.andree/posts/pfbid02LtPUouaaoZ1JdTAveaZBz73W4pi5Mddohkhnmo3DfTsihsvtWXZsVk9ChXCpjrWKl

A California ground squirrel chews up shed rattlesnake skin, licks the scent into its fur, heats its tail by pumping blood from its core, and waves the superheated tail at the rattlesnake in a frequency the snake can see in infrared but the squirrel cannot see at all.

It does this only against rattlesnakes. When it encounters a gopher snake, which cannot detect infrared, it waves the tail cold. The squirrel knows which snake can see heat and adjusts the signal accordingly. Researchers at UC Davis had to build a robotic squirrel to prove it.

Ground squirrels make up roughly seventy percent of the northern Pacific rattlesnake's diet. That number means this is not an occasional encounter. It is the central relationship in both animals' lives. The rattlesnake eats ground squirrels more than it eats anything else. The ground squirrel is hunted by rattlesnakes more than by any other predator. The two species have been locked in an arms race on the same California hillsides for so long that the squirrel has evolved a defensive package that reads like it was designed by a military contractor.

The scent application was documented by Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in Donald Owings' animal behavior lab at UC Davis, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2008. Clucas observed California ground squirrels and rock squirrels picking up pieces of shed rattlesnake skin, chewing them, and licking the paste into their own fur.

They also collected snake scent from soil and rocks where rattlesnakes had been resting. Adult females and juveniles applied snake scent more frequently than adult males. The reason is survival math. Adult male ground squirrels are large enough to survive a rattlesnake bite. Adult females are smaller. Juveniles have not yet developed enough venom-resistance protein to survive one. The animals most vulnerable to being killed by a rattlesnake are the ones wearing rattlesnake perfume.

The scent probably works in two ways. A rattlesnake approaching a burrow at night smells snake instead of squirrel and may bypass the entrance entirely. A rattlesnake that enters the burrow may hesitate if the scent suggests another snake is already inside. Mothers lick their pups to transfer the scent, coating the young in a chemical disguise before they are old enough to apply it themselves.

The infrared tail signal was discovered by Aaron Rundus in Owings' lab and published in PNAS in 2007. Rundus filmed ground squirrels confronting live rattlesnakes in a controlled lab environment using an infrared camera. When a squirrel faced a rattlesnake, it raised its tail, flagged it back and forth, and simultaneously dilated the blood vessels in the tail, flooding it with warm blood from the body core.

The tail temperature rose several degrees, matching the heat of the rest of the animal. In the rattlesnake's infrared vision, the squirrel suddenly appeared much larger. A small rodent waving a cold tail is a meal. The same rodent waving a tail that glows hot in infrared is something harder to assess, and the hesitation costs the snake its ambush.

Rundus tested the mechanism with a robotic squirrel that could flag its tail with or without infrared heating. When the robot flagged with heat against live rattlesnakes, the snakes were significantly less likely to strike. When the robot flagged cold, the deterrent effect dropped. The squirrel's defense is not just visual. It is broadcasting on a channel that only pit vipers can receive.

The squirrels also assess individual snakes. Research from Owings' lab showed that ground squirrels can evaluate how dangerous a specific rattlesnake is by the sound of its rattle. They adjust their approach based on the assessment. Against a less dangerous snake, they mob aggressively, kicking sand, bobbing their heads, and advancing. Against a more dangerous snake, they increase their distance and rely more on the tail signal. They are reading the threat in real time and calibrating the response.

Naturalists in the 1940s first noticed California ground squirrels walking directly up to rattlesnakes, waving their tails, and kicking dirt. They had no explanation for why a prey animal that constituted seventy percent of the snake's diet would approach its primary predator on purpose.

Eighty years of research later, the explanation is that the squirrel is not approaching its predator. It is deploying a layered defense system that includes chemical camouflage stolen from the enemy's own skin, an infrared broadcast tuned to the enemy's most sensitive receptor, venom resistance that makes a bite survivable for adults, and a behavioral assessment protocol that reads the individual threat level of each snake it encounters. The rattlesnake has heat vision, venom, and an ambush strategy refined over millions of years.

The ground squirrel stole the snake's scent, cracked the snake's infrared channel, neutralized the venom, and kicks sand in its face while doing it.

Source: Clucas et al. (2008), Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Rundus et al. (2007), PNAS. Donald Owings and Richard Coss labs, UC Davis. National Geographic, 2007. CapRadio, October 2025.

06/14/2026

Meet the Water Opossum!

Ever seen a yapok (Chironectes minimus)? Found throughout much of Central and South America, this critter is the most aquatic of all living marsupials. Also known as the water opossum, its webbed feet and waterproof fur are perfectly suited for the streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds where it spends much of its time. Growing about 15.7 in (40 cm) long, its diet includes frogs, crustaceans, and other aquatic animals. Fun fact: Both males and females of this species have pouches!

Photo: brandyconrad, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

06/06/2026

😳😳😳
https://www.facebook.com/TheFeedskiVids/posts/pfbid04S76gAHkEArQVRpg5ZKRC8Lw3iXhVA9WNt3w8sreFMSAgxBBMKhZRT9WWLk9uUQkl

Mountain goats are not native to Olympic National Park. They were introduced by hunters in the 1920s and by 2010 over 700 roamed the park with no natural predators.

The problem was salt.

Olympic National Park's geology is unusually low in natural salt deposits. The goats needed the mineral and had found a reliable source... hikers. They began following people on trails, licking sweat off skin and clothing, and aggressively competing for spots where hikers had relieved themselves.

Rangers had been monitoring a particularly aggressive male for four years.

On October 16, 2010, Robert Boardman, a 63-year-old experienced hiker from Port Angeles, was on a day hike with his wife and a friend when the goat appeared and moved toward them. Boardman urged the others to leave and tried to shoo it away.
The goat gored him in the thigh.

It then stood over Boardman's bleeding body for nearly an hour while bystanders desperately tried to reach him. A Coast Guard helicopter airlifted him to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Rangers tracked the goat down and killed it the same day.

Eight years later the National Park Service launched a removal operation. Goats were tranquilized, blindfolded, and airlifted by helicopter to waiting trucks below. Around 381 were relocated to the North Cascades. The rest were shot.

Olympic National Park has since been largely cleared of the animals that should never have been there.

06/02/2026

Beloved SeaWorld San Diego staple Dottie the 39-year-old dolphin dies

A heartfelt statement from SeaWorld remembered Dottie’s life and health challenges.

05/28/2026

Just when we thought we couldn't love him more!
LOLLLL!
https://fb.watch/Hov0EIjlFD/

05/27/2026

Pero si ambos son hermosos